Alan Jay Lerner

Encyclopedia of World Biography
COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.

Alan Jay Lerner

Alan Jay Lerner (born 1918) was one of the top songwriters in both Broadway musical theatre and Hollywood for a quarter century during the Golden Age of the American musical. His collaboration with Frederick Loewe yielded many fine musicals including Brigadoon, My Fair Lady, and Camelot. Lerner also wrote the lyrics for musicals with Leonard Bernstein and Andre Previn, among others, but was never able to achieve the success he had with Loewe.

Alan Jay Lerner, was born in New York City on August 31, 1918 to Edith Adelson Lerner and Samuel Lerner. His grandfather had come to the U.S. from the Ukraine as a poor immigrant. Samuel Lerner worked in the fashion retail business and eventually owned a chain of successful stores known as the Lerner Shops. His marriage was less successful, and Lerner's parents eventually divorced. Although he and his two brothers were Jewish by birth, religion did not play a significant role in lives. Lerner attended plays regularly with his father from a young age and developed a strong attraction for the theater. He began taking piano lessons at the age of five and wrote his first songs as a teen. While his father wanted him to have a career in diplomatic service, the theater was what he wanted.

Lerner attended Choate School along with John F. Kennedy. The two co-edited the school yearbook. He attended college at Harvard and graduated in the same class with Kennedy in 1940. During the summers of 1936 and 1937 he studied at Julliard. He wrote and participated in two Hasty Pudding Club shows at Harvard in 1938 and 1939. At Harvard, Lerner lost the sight in his left eye due to an accident in a boxing match. The injury prevented him from serving in World War II, so he wrote radio scripts during the war. In addition to being nearly blind, Lerner was a short man, only five feet six inches tall. It is said that his attempts at compensating for these flaws made him seem abrasive. At the same time, he is also said to have had a tremendous sense of humor.

Humphrey Burton reported in the Independent, "Like Bernstein, Lerner smoked incessantly, not always nicotine, and bit his nails so fiercely that he always wore white cotton gloves; bloodstained discards would later be found in the men's room. Yet he was reportedly an intensely agreeable personality, immensely persuasive and, like Bernstein, a true son of Harvard. They were the same age but their only previous collaboration had been 20 years earlier when they concocted a spoof song in honor of their alma matter."

After finishing college, Lerner married Ruth O'Day Boyd and moved back to New York to write for the theatre. He wrote radio scripts and books for revues at the Lamb's Club, a theatrical institution. One night in 1942, during a bridge game at Lamb's, he met the composer Frederick Loewe. Lerner was 24, Loewe was 38. The two men decided to collaborate and began a highly successful partnership. In fact, Lerner and Loewe were ranked near the top of the musical entertainment world for a quarter of a century.

Collaboration with Loewe

The first joint effort of Lerner and Loewe was Life of the Party, which was produced in Detroit in 1942. The following two shows included What's Up and The Day Before Spring, both of which received fair reviews. Despite this slow start, the collaboration eventually produced some of the best musicals of the Broadway stage: Brigadoon (1947); Paint Your Wagon (1951); My Fair Lady (1956); the Hollywood film, Gigi (1958) and its 1973 stage adaptation; Camelot (1960); and The Little Prince (1974).

The duo's first great success was the Broadway musical, Brigadoon in 1947. The duo performed the score at over 50 auditions before they were able to get the funding they needed. Their persistence paid off: Brigadoon received the New York Drama Critics Circle award for best musical. Songs like "The Heather on the Hill" and "Almost Like Being In Love" proved Lerner to be a great lyricist, charming audiences by giving insights into the characters and moving along the plot. Edward Jablonski's biography of Lerner quoted the lyricist's explanation of how he and Loewe composed their musicals: "First, we decide where a song is needed in a play. Second, what is it going to be about? Third, we discuss the mood of the song. Fourth, I give (Loewe) a title. Then he writes the music to the title and the general feeling of the song is established. After he's written the melody, then I write the lyrics."

Troubled Personal Life

The Lerner-Loewe association was not always pleasant or effective off stage, however. Part of the problem stemmed from Lerner's rocky personal life. Lerner was married eight times. He had three daughters, Jennifer, Liza and Susan, and one son, Michael. In addition to Boyd, he was married to dancer Marion Bell, lawyer Micheline Muselli Posso di Borgo, editor Karen Gundersen, and actresses Nancy Olson, Sandra Paine, Nina Bushkin, and Liz Robertson. The most notoriously unhappy of Lerner's marriages was to Micheline Muselli Posso di Borgo. Loewe had warned him not to get involved with a lawyer. When the marriage ended, it was reported that she had taken over half a million dollars and shipped much of it to Switzerland.

Lerner was said to have neglected his wives and family while he was involved in a show, and was bored with everyday domestic life between productions. He is also said to have become dependent for a long period on methedrine treatments prescribed by Dr. Max Jacobson. The "doctor" called them "vitamin injections."

Professional Struggles

Lerner often struggled with his lyric writing. While he was able to complete "I Could Have Danced All Night"— the most popular Lerner-Loewe tune—in one 24-hour period, this was unusual. He often agonized for months over a song and was constantly rewriting. It didn't help that Lerner suffered from chronic bouts of insecurity about his talent. Yet, his audience would never have known, as the result was always elegant and natural, even in the diverse range of topics and emotions that he explored.

Lerner told author Donald Knox in his oral history called The Magic Factory, "You have to keep in mind that there is no such thing as realism or naturalism in the theater. That is a myth. If there was realism in the theater, there would never be a third act. Nothing ends that way. A man's life is made up of thousands and thousands of little pieces. In writing fiction, you select 20 or 30 of them. In a musical, you select even fewer than that."

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady was the biggest success of Lerner and Loewe. Based on the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, the show opened on March 15, 1956 at the Mark Hellinger Theater in New York; it ran until 1962. Directed by Moss Hart, the musical starred Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins, Stanley Holloway as Alfred P. Doolittle and a young, unknown actress from London named, Julie Andrews, as Eliza Doolittle.

Lerner sometimes wrote with his singer in mind. "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" was written to accommodate the very limited vocal range of Rex Harrison. It is also an excellent example of a Lerner song that served the purpose of advancing the story: by the end of the song, Professor Higgins realizes he loves Eliza.

In a 1979 interview on National Public Radio's All Things Considered, Lerner discussed some of his lyrics for My Fair Lady. They were not grammatically correct, but
they were written that way for the sake of the rhyme; Henry Higgins sings, "Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter, condemned by every sentence she utters. By right she should be taken out and hung. But it rhymes with the tongue," Lerner said, "so for the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue. And I thought, oh well, maybe nobody will notice it, but not at all. Two nights after it opened, I ran into Noel Coward in a restaurant, and he walked over and he said, Dear boy, it is hanged, not hung. I said, Oh, Noel, I know it, I know it! You know, shut up! So, and there's another, then to have ever let a woman in her life. It should be as to ever let a woman in her life. but it just didn't sing well."

My Fair Lady set records for the longest run of a musical in both New York, where it had 2,717 performances, and London. It received the New York Drama Critics and Tony awards for best musical that year. The cast album, recorded on Columbia records, sold over five million copies. The movie was made in 1964 and the stage show returned to Broadway in 1976 for another successful run.

Other Lerner-Loewe Productions

Lerner and Loewe combined their talents for the Hollywood film, Gigi, based on a story by the French writer Colette. It was seen by some as being almost a French version of My Fair Lady. The screenplay and title song, subtitled Gaston's Soliloquoy, won Academy Awards in 1958. In 1974, the duo earned a Tony Award for best score of a musical for their stage adaptation of Gigi.

The next Lerner-Loewe collaboration was Camelot, produced in 1960, directed by Moss Hart. The star-studded cast included Richard Burton as Arthur, Julie Andrews as Gueinevere, and, Robert Goulet as Lancelot. Songs from the show included "How to Handle a Woman," "The Simple Joys of Maidenhood," and "If Ever I Would Leave You." While the show was a success, it did not receive anywhere near the acclaim that My Fair Lady had. Behind the scenes there were many problems, as well. Moss Hart experienced a heart attack during rehearsals and died shortly after the show's premiere. Lerner was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers, and Loewe was having heart trouble. Lerner and Loewe fought to the point where neither wanted to work with the other again.

End to Lerner-Loewe Partnership

Lerner split with Loewe after Camelot. While Loewe decided to retire, Lerner, only in his forties, continued his career. In 1965, he wrote the words for On A Clear Day You Can See Forever with music by Burton Lane. The show, which explored the idea of extra-sensory perception (ESP), earned Lerner a Grammy Award that year. He also worked with Andre Previn on Coco in 1969. Katherine Hepburn played the starring role. Neither musical was particularly successful.

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, written with Leonard Bernstein in 1976, was Lerner's greatest failure. He had first approached Bernstein in 1972, depressed about the state of the nation in the wake of the Watergate scandal, and well aware of Bernstein's liberal background. Lerner proposed a show that would cover the previously grand history of the White House itself—in fact, the White House would serve as a metaphor for the entire country. The Independent of London quoted actress Patricia Routledge, who sang the female lead, as saying that the show was a "diamondstudded dinosaur."

Lerner never saw the success of My Fair Lady again. His 1979 collaboration with Burton Lane, Carmelina, received meager praise. His last musical, Dance A Little Closer with music by Charles Strouse, opened and closed the same night on Broadway in 1984. The musical was based on Robert Sherwood's play, Idiot's Delight, and starred his last wife, Liz Robertson. The show received bad reviews.

Lerner died of lung cancer at the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center in New York on June 14, 1986. At the time, he was working on a stage/musical version of the 1936 movie My Man Godfrey. William A. Raidy, in The Seattle Times, observed, "If someone asked me to write his epitaph it would come from one of his own observations: 'I write not because it is what I do, but because it is what I am. Not because it is how I make my living, but how I make my life."' A 1985 Kennedy Center celebration in Washington honored the Lerner-Loewe duo for their contributions to American culture. That same year, Lerner earned a Johnny Mercer Award, given by the National Academy of Popular Music, for his lyric writing. And in 1989, Paul Blake put together a musical revue based on Alan Jay Lerner's life and lyrics, Almost Like Being In Love, with music by Frederick Loewe, Burton Lane, Andre Previn, Charles Strouse and Kurt Weill. The show ran for ten days at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco.

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Lerner, Alan Jay

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.

Copyright The Columbia University Press

Alan Jay Lerner, 1918–86, American lyricist and librettist, b. New York City. After two years as a radio scriptwriter, Lerner began an association with the composer Frederick Loewe that resulted in several popular musicals, including Brigadoon (1947, film 1954), Paint Your Wagon (1951, film 1969), Camelot (1960, film 1967), and the Academy-Award-winning film Gigi (1958). Their highly successful My Fair Lady (1956, film 1964), an adaptation of Shaw's Pygmalion, has been translated into many languages. Lerner also wrote Love Life (1948) with Kurt Weill and the book for the film An American in Paris (1951).

See his autobiography, On the Street Where I Live (1978, rev. ed. 1994); biography by E. Jablonski (1996); studies by G. Lees (1990) and S. Citron (1995).

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Lerner, Alan Jay

Encyclopaedia Judaica
COPYRIGHT 2007 Thomson Gale

LERNER, ALAN JAY

LERNER, ALAN JAY (1918–1986), U.S. lyric writer and librettist who collaborated in several successful musicals. Lerner was born in New York and wrote for advertising agencies and radio before teaming up with the composer, Frederick Loewe. Their first hit was the musical Brigadoon (1947), which was followed by Paint Your Wagon in 1951. Lerner also worked independently and won an Oscar in 1951 with his screenplay for An American in Paris. His greatest success came in 1956 when, with Loewe, he created My Fair Lady (based on Shaw's Pygmalion). The Lerner and Loewe film musical Gigi (1958) won Oscars, and in 1960 their Camelot had a two-year run on Broadway.

With the composer Burton Lane, Lerner wrote On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965) and with André Previn, Coco (1969), the story of the "queen" of Paris fashions, Coco Chanel.

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Lerner, Alan Jay

Lerner, Alan Jay

Lerner, Alan Jay, American lyricist, librettist, and screenwriter; b. N.Y., Aug. 31, 1918; d. there, June 14, 1986. Lerner was noted for his witty, thoughtful lyrics for songs used in 13 Broadway musicals, seven of them written with Frederick Loewe, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Brigadoon; they also wrote the film musical Gigi. The most successful recordings of Lernens songs were contained on cast and soundtrack albums, though he had individual hits with such songs as “;Almost Like Being in Love,” “;On the Street Where You Live,” and “;I Could Have Danced All Night.”

Lerner was the son of Joseph J. Lerner, who ran a chain of women’s clothing shops, and Edith Adelson Lerner. He wrote a football song while attending the Choate preparatory school and contributed to shows put on by the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard, from which he graduated in June 1940. On June 26 he married Ruth O’Day Boyd; they had one child and divorced in 1947.

Lerner wrote radio shows and advertising copy in N.Y. after graduating from college. He contributed to shows put on by the Lambs Club and in August 1942 was approached by fellow member Frederick Loewe, who had written a couple of musicals and was looking for a new lyricist/librettist to replace his partner Earle Crooker, who had been drafted. Lerner wrote the book, based on the play The Patsy by Barry Connors, and revised some of Crooker’s lyrics for Life of the Party, which opened Oct. 8, 1942, in Detroit but closed before reaching Broadway. Lerner and Loewe then wrote the songs, and Lerner cowrote an original book, for the musical What’s Up? The production reached Broadway in November 1943 but ran only 63 performances. Next, Lerner wrote the original book and lyrics and Loewe wrote the music for The Day Before Spring, which opened in November 1945 and ran 165 performances.

Lerner and Loewe finally achieved success with their fourth musical, Brigadoon, another original book by Lerner about a Scottish village that comes to life once a century. Opening in March 1947, it ran 581 performances, while the cast album reached the Top Ten. Having divorced his first wife, Lerner married Brigadoon’s star, actress Marion Bell, in 1947; they divorced in 1949.

Lerner next wrote Love Life, a musical that traced a family through different periods of history. Loewe declined to work on it, so Lerner teamed with Kurt Weill. The show opened in October 1948 and ran 252 performances. “;Here I’ll Stay” from the score was recorded for a chart entry by Jo Stafford.

Lerner signed a contract with MGM to write scripts and lyrics. He married actress Nancy Olson on March 19, 1950. They had two children and divorced in 1957. Lerner wrote the screenplay and lyrics to music by Burton Lane for Royal Wedding, which starred Fred Astaire and was released in March 1951. The film was a box office success, the soundtrack album hit the Top Ten, and the song “;Too Late Now” was nominated for an Academy Award. Lerner next wrote the screenplay for An American in Paris, a film utilizing the music of George Gershwin. Released in November 1951, it earned Lerner an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.

Lerner and Loewe reunited for the musical Paint Your Wagon, an original book by Lerner about the Calif. Gold Rush. With a run of 289 performances beginning in November 1951, the show was a financial failure, but the cast album reached the Top Ten. Lerner returned to Hollywood and wrote the screenplay for a film adaptation of Brigadoon, starring Gene Kelly and released in September 1954. The soundtrack album reached the charts.

Lerner and Loewe reached their creative and commercial peak with My Fair Lady, a musical adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which opened in March 1956. Its 2, 717 performances made it the longest running Broadway musical up to that time. The cast album, featuring stars Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, topped the charts and sold millions of copies. Vic Damone recorded ’On the Street Where You Live” for a Top Ten hit, Sylvia Sims reached the Top 40 with “;I Could Have Danced All Night/’ and three other songs from the score also made the singles charts: “;I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face” (by Rosemary Clooney); “;With a Little Bit of Luck” (by Percy Faith and His Orch.); and “;Get Me to the Church on Time” (by Julius LaRosa). Lerner married Micheline Muselli Pozzo di Borgo, a lawyer, on Nov. 29, 1957. They had one child and were divorced on June 25, 1965.

Lerner and Loewe next wrote a film musical, Gigi, for which Lerner adapted the screenplay from the novel by Colette. It was released in May 1958 and became a box-office hit, winning the Academy Award for Best Picture. The title song also won an Oscar, and the soundtrack album hit #1 and won the Grammy in its category.

Returning to Broadway, Lerner adapted T. H. White’s novel about King Arthur and the Round Table, The Once and Future King, as a musical, writing the songs with Loewe. Titled Camelot, the show opened in December 1960, and after an uncertain start it ran 873 performances, with a chart-topping, million-selling cast album featuring Richard Burton, Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet.

Lerner and Loewe again separated, and Lerner initially turned to Richard Rodgers to collaborate on his next musical, with an original book about extrasensory perception. But their partnership did not work out. Lerner wrote the screenplay for a film adaptation of My Fair Lady, which opened in October 1964. Despite being one of the top grossing films of the year and winning eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, the film did not break even due to its cost. But the cast album was a million-selling Top Ten hit, and Andy Williams’s revival of “;On the Street Where You Live” reached the Top 40.

Lerner brought Burton Lane in to work on his ESP musical, which finally opened on Broadway as On a Clear Day You Can See Forever in October 1965. It ran an unprofitable 273 performances, but the cast album reached the charts and won a Grammy, while Johnny Mathis scored a Top Ten hit on the easy-listening charts with the title song. Lerner was married for the fifth time on Nov. 15, 1966, to reporter Karen Gundersen. They divorced Dec. 9, 1974. Lerner wrote the screenplay for an adaptation of Camelot that opened in October 1967. Another expensive film, it was financially unsuccessful despite a high gross; the soundtrack album was a million-seller. Lerner produced the October 1969 film adaptation of Paint Your Wagon, and he is credited with writing the screenplay, which was adapted by Paddy Chayefsky. He also wrote five new songs with André Previn. Reportedly the most expensive film made up to that time, it was an enormous failure at the box office, though the soundtrack album went gold.

Lerner again collaborated with Previn on his next project, Coco, a stage musical about fashion designer Chanel, starring Katharine Hepburn. Opening in December 1969, it was helped to profitability by Hepburn’s appearance and ran 332 performances. Lerner wrote the screenplay for a film adaptation of On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, which starred Barbra Streisand and opened in June 1970. It was another expensive failure, though the soundtrack album reached the charts.

Lerner teamed with John Barry for the songs in Lolita, My Love, a stage musical he adapted from Vladimir Nabokov’s novel Lolita. The show opened in Philadelphia on Feb. 15, 1971, but closed in Boston on March 27 without reaching Broadway. Lerner then reunited with Loewe and they wrote five new songs for a stage adaptation of Gigi that opened on Broadway in November 1973. It ran an unsuccessful 103 performances but won the Tony Award for Best Score. Lerner and Loewe’s last work together was a film musical version of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s story for children, The Little Prince. It was released in November 1974 and earned the songwriters Oscar nominations for the score and the title song.

Lerner married Sandra Payne, an actress, on Dec. 10, 1974, and they divorced in 1976. He married Nina Bushkin, a college administrator, on May 30, 1977, and they divorced in 1980. Meanwhile, he wrote two unsuccessful Broadway musicals, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with music by Leonard Bernstein, in 1976, and Car-melina, with music by Burton Lane, in 1979. Michael Johnson revived “;Almost Like Being in Love” as a Top 40 hit in 1978.

Lerner met his eighth wife, actress and singer Elizabeth Robertson, when she was appearing in a revival of My Fair Lady in London. They married on Aug. 13, 1981, and he collaborated with Charles Strouse on the musical Dance a Little Closer, based on Robert E. Sherwood’s play Idiot’s Delight, for a starring vehicle for her. It ran for only one performance in May 1983. Lerner finished writing The Musical Theatre, a historical study, before his death from lung cancer at 67 in 1986.

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